REDMOND, WA -- Adoption of Microsoft Silverlight streaming tools are on the rise, including use by France TV, Microsoft's Senior Director Tom Honeybone told Beet.TV during an interview at Microsoft headquarters. The French broadcaster's coverage of the French Open was the first use of the latest iteration of Silverlight, called "Silverlight Smooth Streaming." The technology adjusts video delivery in real-time based [...]

Rafat Ali, over at paidContent. reports that tech media impresario Alan Meckler, is selling his tech media business, including Internet.com for $18 million. Back in 2007, I spoke with Meckler about Mediabistro, which his company will continue to own.  He speaks about his interest in online job and training sites.Andy Plesser, Managing Editor

While the monetization models for online news are emerging, there will an upside for  highly valued, niche content, says Josh Tyrangiel, Managing editor of TIME.com Subscribers will pay for "indispensable" information, he says.The paid model for news content is emerging on many front, notably in the U.K. with developments at the Financial Times and the News Corp papers.  Robert Andrews, a [...]

MTV Networks is currently selling ad inventory for the format it officially declared the best for online video, and the media company expects other Web publishers to follow suit, said Jason Witt, SVP and GM of MTV's digital advertising unit in an interview with Andy last week in Manhattan. Based on a study it commissioned, MTV said a five-second pre-roll ad combined [...]

Here is my sit down with Blip.tv co-founders Mike Hudack and Dina Kaplan.  We caught up last week, after there news event at their company's downtown Manhattan office. A couple of big takeways are the deal with YouTube.  Most, most significantly is how Blip.tv is distribtuting very high quality, large video files to platforms including Roku, Tivo and Verizon Fios.The reality [...]

Boston-based Bain Capital Venture Partners, an investor in Blip.tv, is bullish on online video investment. Managing Director Jeff Glass sees other investment opportunities around "medium-tale" video content and its related ecosystem. I caught up with him at the Blip.tv news event last week in Manhattan. Andy Plesser, Managing Editor

For all of us missing Owen Thomas, former Valleywag editor, from writing tech blogging scene, he's back, but a bit kindler and gentler way, and it's not his full time gig. He has quietly started a tech blog under the new NBC Bay Area Local,

Web-to-TV hardware maker Roku struck a deal with Blip.tv last week to bring independent Web content to Roku boxes connected to TVs. The partnership could help spur Roku's market penetration by routing more programming to the TV set, the company's Jim Funk, VP of business development, told Beet.TV at an event in New York last week.The Blip.tv-Roku deal, rolling out this [...]

SEATTLE, WA -- Internet TV provider thePlatform has an advantage over its competition because it's owned by Comcast.  But even with corporate ownership and first dibs on plum projects like TV Everywhere, the firm is still feeling the broader economic pressures like anyone else.Such price and market pressures are forcing technology providers to be as efficient as humanly possible, thePlatform CEO [...]

Google has acquired ON2, a New York company which provides encoding software which allows videos to be compressed into Flash and other software formats.  Here's a report on TechCrunch. A couple years back, we interviewed former ON2 President Bill Joll about video encoding for the Web, consumer electronics and related topics.  We have republished that interview today.Update: Some good analysis by [...]

NEW YORK, NY -- Blip.tv's content creators could land on-air on NBC in New York thanks to a slew of new distribution deals the video-sharing service struck last week, including one with NBC Local Media. Under that deal, some of blip.tv's 50,000 Web shows could make their way up the food chain onto the NBC flagship station WNBC-TV in New York, [...]

The consumer packaged goods giant Kimberly-Clark recently launched a 10-episode Web series on green home improvement tips sponsored by Scott's Natural. It's a good example of how sponsors can pull off branded series in a way that feels organic for viewers. More ad dollars will also flow into Web video from media agency Digitas, which expects to ink about 10 [...]

REDMOND, WA  -- Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing, the new search engine from Microsoft, says that internal research has found that users develop a "habit" with their search engine of choice. In the first of a two-part interview with with Beet.TV, he does not refer to Google by name.  He said that gaining market share in search is a "long term [...]

Extend Media is aiming to capitalize on the buzz surrounding TV Everywhere with the launch of a new platform to help multichannel providers deliver TV programming online, the company announced today. Though Comcast-owned technology enabler the Platform won the contract to power the Time Warner-Comcast trial of TV Everywhere this summer, Extend Media said it’s already inked a deal with [...]

A media company needs at least a three-year runway before it can take off for profitability, and that's the goal for the new video destination Take180.com, the site's general manager Chris Williams told Beet.TV at the NATPE LA TV Fest in early July. The Disney-owned Web studio that specializes in spoofs and so-called "participatory Web series" launched in late March with three [...]

YouTube's "News Near You," a recent addition to the YouTube news page, organizes local news sources as a strip of thumbnail images.  YouTube has organized hundreds of news sources into news "portals" in 100 U.S. cities, we have learned. Brian Stelter in Monday's New York Times takes a look at the evolution of YouTube as news environment, including the emergence of [...]

HOLLYWOOD, Calif -- There's more money to be made in creating communities for programming online than making the content itself, Sarah Szalavitz of social design agency 7 Robot told Beet.TV at the NATPE LA TV Fest. She's also a content creator, since she writes and produces the Web's top green series "Zap Root," which has earned more than 500,000 views for [...]

Yesterday, Google announced a significant enhancement to its image search enhancement by allowing users to search by various colors and categories. Last summer we interviewed Google's R. J. Pittman about the evolution of image search at Google.  We've repubished the interview today.Here's the take on the development by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch.Andy Plesser, Managing Editor

SEATTLE, WA -- Online video platform company Delve Networks paired up with Akamai in a deal to provide joint video services to customers, the companies announced today. With a partnership now in place, the companies will work together on projects and also pitch each other's customers, Delve Networks VP of Product Management Edgardo Nazario told Beet.TV during an interview at the [...]

HOLLYWOOD, Calif -- After inking a deal with portal DailyMotion to fund the pilot for his latest online series, Web star Hayden Black tells Beet.TV the site is now pitching potential sponsors for the show. The pilot for the sci-fi musical comedy called "The Cabonauts" has been shot, so DailyMotion is making the rounds with advertisers, Black told Beet.TV at the NATPE [...]